With cats now becoming the most popular type of domestic pet, the use of kitty litter boxes continues to increase. Such a box is normally made of plastic or similar material so that the cat's urine will not leak through. The box has placed in it one of any number of particulate litter material meant to absorb moisture and odor from the cat's waste. These materials are generally referred to as kitty litter. The cats also will generally bury their solid waste in the kitty litter.
General practice for most cat owners is to discard the kitty litter after an extended period of time. However, before the kitty litter has reached a state where it need be totally dumped, it is often necessary to periodically remove the solid waste to prevent it from being kicked out of the box by the cat upon subsequent visits to the kitty litter box.
Many cat owners find this task of manually searching the kitty litter for the solid waste to be obnoxious. Thus, inventors have periodically sought to devise ways of cleaning the solid waste automatically. Patents showing devices for cleaning litter boxes include U.S. Pat. Nos. 4,096,827; 4,117,804; 4,190,525; 4,325,325; and 4,325,822. However, no non-manual method of cleaning kitty litter boxes has gained widespread acceptance.